26 comments

I watch a lot of those home renovation shows on HGTV and my parents redecorated their home in the 70s (still decorated that way BTW). What is it with all the wallpaper? Was there no paint in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s? Or did people need the print on the walls to help with the acid trips???LOL 🙂

Yikes! Is it possible that some of these are the “before” pictures LOL? Also, in the cover photo, is that thing with the metal curlicues an actual crib?! Even for 1975 that looks extremely hazardous. Well, hazardousness is timeless, of course, but even in 1975 wouldn’t people have realized the danger of that design? Bumper pads are NOT sufficient protection.

This should be called “Children’s Rooms: How to Decorate them so Your Child Will Leave on His 18th Birthday.” Yiikes! I’m having trouble picking an un-favorite; I think I dislike all of these almost equally. 🙂

They’re so BUSY. I feel claustrophobic just looking at a lot of them. Those cowboy-and-indian hooked rugs in the bottom photo take the cake, though. So much WTFery. That red room with the light bulbs in the ceiling looks like a dressing room for Vegas showgirls, too. These are the rooms that ended up on those remodeling shows on HGTV, I tells ya.

Don’t forget the Snoopy, Come Home! pennant! My mom had a pennant like that one (the quote was different, though: “I’ve got to start acting more sensible…tomorrow!”), and at one point when I was little, I had it in my room!

Found your site a few days ago and I love it. I just “retired” from volunteering at a library book sale after nine years. Some of these books were at my sale. I especially remember the one about cutting hair.
Looking forward to more treasures —

Wow, that room with the zillion lightbulbs looks so Studio 54. 😛 That and I wouldn’t want to change all those bulbs when they inevitably burn out.

The pink red room and the green room in the first scan are the least offensive here, but they’re still going to look bad once someone, you know, actually uses the room. There’s a reason you usually see elaborate settings like these only in furniture stores, Better Homes & Gardens, and TV shows—they’re hard to keep clean.

I like the pink flowery one (though pink isn’t my style) and I’m totally liking the leaf green themed one. The red one with all the light bulbs? HUH?! Let’s not forget the hooked rug cowboy with his guns and the matching Indian/Native American!

I just noticed that there’s an American Indian beadwork book in the pic with the stripy-wall headboard and the voodoo dolls on the wall. I think we still have that book in the collection! (And it stays–we have a pretty big calling for that sort of thing. Plus, it’s small).
Now–the room with the orangy plaid bed: the bed looks a bit small; like it’s the same size as that creepy doll on the lounge chair thing. But I have no doubts that the creepy doll moves around the room when you aren’t looking…

These are about as bad – in the opposite direction – as the modern very-white-everywhere trend, where everything is shades of white, with a little pale white for contrast.

But any room where *everything* matches perfectly is a horror to behold in my eyes.
A place, and especially a child’s room, should look lived in and grown into and everchanging as the child grows and changes.

The eyes of a small child prefers primary colours anyway, so why not make the room into what is best for the child, and bollocks to fashion and trends! (and yes, I have a baby daughter and have thought about room decor for far too long)